Ghost Road Blues pd-1

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Ghost Road Blues pd-1 Page 13

by Jonathan Maberry


  Boyd was almost weeping. “You’re going to run out on me, man. You’re gonna do me and take my share and bug the fuck out.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re gonna do me and just split—”

  Ruger’s hand lashed out with appalling speed and slapped Boyd’s face hard to the left and then backhanded it to center position. He thrust a warning finger under Boyd’s nose, jabbing the air as he spoke. “Shut your fucking mouth, man. Shut it right now, or so help me God…” Ruger’s whispery voice trailed off, no reason to continue. Boyd shut up, but pain and fear crawled all over his face, twisting his lips and eyes and brows, wrinkling his features into a darkly comical mask. Ruger squatted down next to him, hooked a finger under his chin, and raised his face so that they were nose to nose, only inches apart. “Now you listen to me, Boyd. I said that I wasn’t going to hurt you, and I’m not going to. I got no reason to lie to you. If I wanted you dead, I’d cap you now and say-la-vee, but as it happens, I need your sorry ass. I can’t carry all that stuff myself, and even if I could, you have better connections for getting us out of the country than I do. I need you, Boyd, and that means you stay alive. You don’t have to believe me. In fact, I don’t give a rat’s ass either way, but there it is. I ain’t doing this out of brotherly love, so don’t think I’ve gone all soft on you. Keeping you alive will help keep me alive and out of the slam. Simple as that. No sentiment, no after-school special heartwarming stories, you dig? I need you, and you need me. Case closed. Now, I’m going to lug you over to the fence, right by that scarecrow. That way I’ll be able to find you again. I’ll set your leg best I can and you can snort all the girl you want to take the edge off the pain, and then I’m going on alone for a little while…but I will be back.” He jerked Boyd’s head on the point of his finger. “Do you have all that? Are we clear?”

  Boyd searched Ruger’s eyes for the lie, for the cruel joke, but he found nothing more than the unemotional determination of a predator looking out for its own hide. He believed him. “Okay…okay, man.”

  Ruger smiled that slithery smile of his.

  “That’s my man. That’s my main man!” He winked and then reached for the buckle of Boyd’s pack. “Let’s lighten the load a little first.” That done, he stood and moved around behind Boyd, crouched, and caught him under the armpits. Before he lifted, he leaned so close that his lips brushed Boyd’s ear as he spoke. “I’m going to lift you out of that hole. If you dare scream, man, I’ll rip your throat out. Do you think I’m joking?”

  “N…no…” Boyd whispered.

  “Good. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker. Just take it, man. Just take it and screw that pain like you’d screw a little tight-snatch bitch. You hear me? Just screw the hell out of it.”

  “Okay….”

  “Okay. Here we go, buddy-boy.”

  He hoisted Boyd up out of the hole.

  Boyd didn’t scream. He almost did…Christ knows he wanted to, but instead he bit into his lip so hard that blood burst from it and ran hot and salty down his chin. The world took a sick and dizzying stagger and there was a dull roaring in Boyd’s ears as if he were standing too near to a raging waterfall. Nausea punched him in the pit of the stomach and slapped tears from his eyes. Ruger wasn’t gentle about it. He lifted the big, heavy Boyd as best he could, arms wrapped like iron bands around his thick chest, and dragged him to the fence. He squatted and lowered Boyd to the ground and more or less shoved him up against the rough wooden slats of the fence. He even tried to position him so that he had a modicum of comfort. The whole process, as Boyd saw it, took about a thousand years.

  “Jesus Christ, man, how much do you friggin’ weigh?” Ruger said, sucking in great gulps of air. He walked around in a small circle, arching his back and stretching his arms over his head. Finally he walked away and returned lugging both backpacks. He crossed his ankles and lowered himself slowly to the ground, sitting Indian fashion in front of Boyd.

  “G…gimme a cigarette,” Boyd wheezed, licking the blood from his lips. “Christ, I need a cigarette.”

  Ruger slapped his pockets until he found his pack of Pall Malls, kissed one out of the pack, lighted it, and handed it to Boyd, who sucked it greedily. Boyd’s face was the color of sour milk and it glistened with greasy sweat.

  “Ruger, my leg…”

  “Yeah, yeah, your leg. Wait a minute. Here, toot some of this. Better than Novocain.” He held up one of the bulky Ziploc bags and a rolled-up ten-dollar bill. Boyd took the tube and bent toward the proffered coke; his inhalation was long and deep. “Ride ’em, cowboy!” said Ruger in real appreciation as Boyd took a second snort, and then a third.

  “Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man…” Boyd sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back against the fence.

  Ruger beamed at him like a country doctor watching a kid swallow a spoonful of tonic and honey. “The breakfast of champions, m’man.”

  “Oh man, that feels so much better.”

  “Think so? Good, ’cause now I gotta set your leg.”

  Boyd half shrugged. “With enough of this shit, you could cut the fucker right off.”

  Grinning, Ruger fished in his pocket for a knife, found it, and flicked it open, a bone-handled Buck with a three-inch locking blade that was always sharp and well oiled. The keen edge sliced almost arrogantly through the tough black fabric of Boyd’s double-knits, gliding silently from cuff to midthigh. Ruger cut the pant-leg off and then tore the cloth into long strips, which he then set aside. Using his lighter he inspected the break. Both shinbones had broken a few inches below the knee, and they had broken in an ugly way. There were small mounds where the ends of the broken bones tented the skin, and the whole area was livid and swollen.

  “Mm,” Ruger said. “Cute.”

  “How’s it look?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “I can set it, but I think you’re gonna need a doctor. You broke the hell out of it, Boyd. Man, when you break something, you break the ass off it.” He flicked off his lighter.

  “I can’t feel it too bad. Just hurts a little.”

  “Not for long. Go on, take another toot,” Ruger said, lightly grasping Boyd’s shin with both hands and placing his foot against Boyd’s chest.

  “Gimme a sec…” Boyd said, diving nose-first into the bag of coke. Between toots he said, “Just let me know when you’re gonna do it, okay?”

  Ruger did it right then. He shoved with his foot and threw all his weight back and away. The leg stretched in its tube of skin and muscle, the bones shifted, the ends scything through meat and muscle, and then he let it snap back into place.

  “Now,” Ruger said, but Boyd had passed out. His eyes had rolled up in their sockets, his mouth dropped open in the beginnings of a scream, and then he fell over on his side. “You’re welcome,” Ruger said with a mean smile.

  Ruger sat and finished his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the ground, watching with quiet amusement as Boyd slowly drifted back up out of the pool of painless sleep into the real world. He searched for that exact moment when the pain sensors in Boyd’s brain came online and connected his muzzy thoughts with all the jumbled stimuli from his leg. When Boyd’s eyes suddenly flared wide and he drew in a sharp, high hiss of agony, Ruger closed his eyes for a second, savoring that little moment. Rather tasty.

  “Oh…Christ!” Boyd wailed, clawing at his leg with his good hand. His scrabbling fingers encountered strangeness in the form of wooden slats bound to the leg with strips of torn denim.

  “Hi, Boyd,” Ruger said, “have a nice nap?”

  “My leg…?”

  “…Is set. More or less. Still have to get your ass to a doctor, but it’ll do for now, I guess. I splinted it, so you should be okay for a little while. I waited until you woke up before I took off to find Farmer John, or whoever owns all this friggin’ corn.”

  “Man, you can’t just leave me—”

  “Hey…hey! We’ve been through al
l that. I’m leaving you here, but I will be back. Just so you see that I’m not shitting you, I’m leaving all the stuff here. Cash, coke — the works. Now, you know I’m coming back for that, am I right?”

  Boyd gave him a long, uncertain look, but finally he nodded.

  Ruger popped a stick of Juicy-Fruit into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for several seconds, his dark eyes ranging over Boyd’s face. “Okay then. End of discussion. You stay here and talk to Mr. Scarecrow, and I’ll go see what I can see. Maybe I’ll get a wheelbarrow or something. Wheel your ugly butt right the hell out of here. If we’re lucky I’ll find a nice nondescript set of wheels. Pickup or four-by-four…something we can use to go off-road to stay away from our buddies in blue.”

  “Hurry, man.”

  Ruger smiled disarmingly, white teeth gleaming. “Back before you even know it.” He stood up, stretched his aching muscles, and then did a slow turn, orienting himself. He sketched a little salute to Boyd, told him to be good, and strolled off, ignoring Boyd’s pleas to hurry. Within a few seconds he vanished around a bend and was gone.

  Boyd stared after him, eyes awash with tears of pain. Above him the scarecrow’s loose clothing rustled quietly in the light, cold breeze. Boyd did not see the long scrambling line of beetles and roaches and worms and spiders that swarmed out of the fields, scurried up the fence posts, and scuttled up the pants-legs of the scarecrow. Not all of the rippling of the dummy’s clothing was caused by the breeze blowing past, yet all of it was caused by the night itself.

  (5)

  Iron Mike Sweeney, the Enemy of Evil, looked at his chronometer. Nearly 1930 hours. He had half an hour to get home.

  “Oh man,” he said in a low, terse whisper, “don’t let me be late.”

  He was all the way out past the Guthrie farm, far down on A-32. Miles to go, and it would be hard enough on flat ground. He kicked the War Machine into action and pedaled like crazy.

  “Crap,” he said aloud. He hadn’t meant to be late, but the papers that should have been dropped off before school was even out had come in an hour after Mike usually picked them up. He’d kicked ass dropping them off, saving the last ones for the long haul down A-32. Home was on the other side of town, and the miles between were mostly hills. No way to get there until sometime after eight.

  Yeah, a belting for sure.

  He zoomed down one hill and tried to use the momentum to get himself up the next one, but gravity began pulling at him and he had to pump his legs so that sweat popped out on his face and under his clothes. He kept his head down and pumped the pedals, thinking of home that lay one thousand and seven miles away. One million and seven. Where Mom and Vic were waiting for him. Mom sitting by the door with her hand clamped around a collins glass, looking out, waiting for him to come creeping into the yard, steeling herself to try and run some kind of interference for him; and Vic, sitting on the left-hand side of the couch, a Winston burning in one corner of his mouth, the remote-control dwarfed by his hand, clicking through channel after channel. Vic, with his hard mechanic’s hands and that little smile of his that he wore only when Mike did something wrong. Which, by Vic’s tally, was pretty often. Vic, who demanded to be called “sir” and had enforced his decree with his belt. Vic, who liked how hard his hands were, and how fast. Vic, who liked to use his hands, to hurt with his hands.

  Mike looked down the long road and swore to himself that he would not cry. Not this time. Not now, and not after it was all over. No matter how bad it was, he wouldn’t let that prick see him cry. Even if it meant that Vic would try all the harder to wring the tears out of him.

  After all, he was Iron Mike Sweeney. The Enemy of…

  He felt the tears begin to well up and he swiped at them with pure anger.

  “Damn you!” he suddenly yelled, his voice rising high and loud, bursting out of his troubled chest.

  Then, with a snarl of pure rage, he thrust himself over the crest of the hill and plunged down the far side, his legs worked furiously, churning around and around as the bike accelerated smoothly; not to get home a moment faster, but to channel his fury and fear somewhere. The War Machine became a blur as it shot down the hill.

  He saw the glow of the headlights just a split second before the vehicle crested the near hill. It bounded up over the knoll and swept down the other side, moving at incredible speed for so narrow a road. Mike was just beginning his climb up the hill, having taken the last four hills at a rapid clip.

  The headlights dazzled him, and with his bright yellow and orange school jacket and white baseball cap, he fairly glowed in their brilliance. The vehicle — Mike still couldn’t tell what kind of car or truck it was — swooped straight down the hill at him, never veering to give him space. When he saw the red running lights, he knew it was a truck, and the wide set of the headlights confirmed this, but he couldn’t understand why it was driving so fast and why it wasn’t giving him any room. Didn’t it see him? It hogged the whole side of the road, cramming the shoulder, which was his only lane unless Mike decided to veer over to the other side. The truck sped on, and Mike was sure that the driver didn’t see him, despite the brightness of his clothes. In the few seconds he had left, he jagged sharply and quickly to his left and gave the truck as wide a berth as possible.

  Those few seconds snapped away like firecrackers and then time seemed to accelerate as the headlights also shifted, and Mike stared in complete horror as he realized the truck was angling toward him. Crossing the yellow line and angling directly toward him!

  Mike tried to wave the truck away, but the roar of the engine actually increased, and then suddenly everything in Mike’s world seemed to change, to become brighter as if there were spotlights on everything — and somehow he knew that this illumination was not coming from the headlights. It was as if some inner lights had flashed on, and at the same time everything abruptly slowed down. Mike was crouched over his handlebars, his face turned toward the oncoming truck. There was no sound. The truck’s wheels were angled and the chrome bumper was so close he could have reached out and touched it. Mike felt his hands jerk the handlebars sharply to one side — and that motion seemed the only thing that happened in real time — and then he threw his weight farther forward, adding his mass to the impetus from the fierce pumping of his legs. In a fragment of a second, as the truck rolled at him — murderously close and yet moving so impossibly slowly — Mike veered his bike at a crazy angle and slipped past the very corner of the big silver bumper.

  Immediately he shot back into real time and with a deafening roar the tow-truck shot past him, the fenders and wheels inches from him, the slipstream ripping at him. The truck passed in a second and as it ripped past, Mike’s bike shot off the highway, crunched across the verge, and flew into black emptiness.

  He had no time to scream, and no voice for it anyway. The War Machine hurtled off the edge of the drainage ditch and smashed down in the pumpkin patch that bordered the road. The front wheel hit the twisted vine spiraling out from the top of one large gourd and the bike stopped at all once. Mike kept going.

  He passed over the handlebars, turned a neat somersault in the air, and almost — almost — rotated far enough forward for him to land on his feet. It would have been a wonderful accident worthy of a standing ovation, but as he passed over the bars his left sneaker toe caught the rippled rubber of the handgrip and spoiled the rotation. Mike’s heels hit first but lacking the right angle of momentum he fell backward instead of forward. His buttocks smashed down on a pumpkin and it burst under him, the stem giving his tailbone a painful jolt; then his back hit a scattering of underdeveloped pumpkins, each the size and approximate hardness of baseballs. He could feel one rib break with a searing detonation of red-hot pain that stole his breath, exploded his nerve endings, and closed a hot fist around his heart. His head flopped back and struck a stone.

  Everything stopped. All sound and movement stopped and the only things he was aware of were blackness, searing pain, and the fireflies of head trauma.
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  Mike’s mouth worked like a fish, trying to gasp in air but finding none.

  He lay there for thousands of years.

  When his mind could function on a rudimentary level his first thought was: Oh, shit…I’m really going to be late now. Then, Oh my God, I think I’m dead.

  Turning his head, he could see the receding taillights of the truck, could see that it was a tow-truck — lightning seemed to strike sparks from the massive gleaming hook. The engine roared as the truck picked up speed and downshifted to climb the hill.

  Mike lay there, dazed, hurting, trying to survive the moment.

  Once the truck had crested the hill and vanished, he stared up at the dark and featureless sky. The lightning flickered distantly and underlit the clouds with a dark red glow.

  As the engine growl of the tow-truck dwindled into silence, Mike tried to make sense of things. He felt smashed and stupid and afraid. Amazed, too. That idiot in the tow-truck had actually tried to run him off the road! He had really tried, gone out of his way to do it, Mike was sure of it. He simply couldn’t understand it.

  He tried to move, couldn’t, and lay there, focusing on thought rather than feeling.

  Sure, he’d seen some people play chicken with cyclists, shifting a little closer just to spook them, but never like this. Never at night on a deserted road and at such high speeds, and with such a clear-cut intention of actually forcing him off the road. Or, he thought, maybe with the intention of hitting him. No, that’s dumb. Mike dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

  His lungs started working better, taking in more air.

  “Any minute now I’ll get up,” he said aloud, but he didn’t believe it.

  I could be dead now, he thought in simple amazement. If I hadn’t moved so fast, I could be dead now. Just for a second his brain replayed that narrow escape. He recalled the eerie way in which time seemed to have slowed down as he veered his bike out of the way. It was so strange.

  It was because of what he’d done that he was alive. He thought about that for a long time, replaying it in his head. Despite the pain, something like a smile formed on his lips. He was alive, he realized, because he had done exactly the right thing at the right time, and done it quickly, efficiently, and without hesitation. No playtime stuff. His own quick thinking had shown him the path and his own reflexes had taken him out of harm’s way. Iron Mike Sweeney, the Enemy of Evil.

 

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